Bara hospital: The good, bad and ugly

I was shortly to be transported from my bed in a very public – and noisy – ward onto a gurney and thence to the theatre.

There, a growing tumour was to be removed from my bladder. For I was in Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Soweto.

While awaiting my imminent hour of reckoning in theatre, I contemplated my brief journey to that moment.

It had all started a little over eight weeks previously when I had been incarcerated in a Netcare hospital seeking relief from a burgeoning sarcoma adjacent to my chest wall.

This malevolent growth had bloomed in a few short weeks, inducing, in the latter stages, chattering cold followed by blazing fevers on a daily basis.

And with an infection count of 200 – normal is zero – I was swiftly whisked into the high care ward of the hospital.

There were 14 beds curtained off, each with a TV screen and a locker for the few belongings.

Nurses, perhaps one for every two patients, clean towels, a green hospital gown into which you were expected to change and wear and two fully equipped bathrooms, plus several washing stations with soap dispensers.

And as expected, spotlessly clean. As for the meals, they are definitely edible, top boarding school stuff.

Ultrasound and MRI scans, chest X-rays and all other preparatory procedures were conducted swiftly and efficaciously.

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Your nurse could be summoned by the simple act of pressing a button, and lo! She manifested.

Once the operation was concluded, a visiting physio forced one to get out of bed and move around.

All of the above I recalled in a haze, which blurred into my arrival at Bara.

A total of 20 hours patiently queuing with a few hundred others over two days seeking admission, which, once granted, involved my finding my way from urology to ECGs and X-rays, through pharmacy and into accident and emergency, where I was informed my transport to a faraway ward could be accessed.

Carrying just a small canvas bag containing basic toiletries and a few snacks, I was squeezed into an already overloaded minibus and careened off through the vast confusion of Bara.

Finally, I arrived at a vast modern complex built to accommodate large numbers of Covid-19 patients, which never happened.

I set about finding my ward. Echoing long, empty corridors and passing several empty or half-empty wards, I finally arrived.

Large cubicles simply furnished… my own was equipped with a bed, a thin blanket and a thinner pillow encased in a thick plastic covering.

There were no lights behind the beds, allowing one to read. And there was a small locker. Nothing to change into, no gowns provided, the good-natured nurses smiled apologetically.

There were two large lavatories cum shower rooms, both spotless. But, sadly, no soap or towels. More smiling apologies.

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The toilet bowls are clean, but they are devoid of seats. The harsh reality of a large state hospital and its offerings came as a sharp corrective.

The next day, I was transferred back into the main hospital building – the surgical ward where patients due for imminent surgery were bedded.

This was bedlam compared to the calm, quiet half-empty ward in which I had spent the previous night.

Patients head to toe in a corridor, in which I was shown my bed. Of privacy in a cubicle, there was none, of lockers, there were none.

Nor were there blankets on my bed, so two large coats were found and thrown over me. Nor was I offered anything to wear.

The following morning I was handed a pair of hospital pyjamas unnervingly similar to concentration camp uniforms and, of course, forbidden any food I nervously awaited the inevitable.

I had already received visits from the young anaesthetist and one of the surgical team members, who had done their best to calm my fluttering nerves.

Finally, the moment of reckoning. A porter arrived with the gurney, I climbed on, nerves jangling uncontrollably and then, as we moved, unbelievably and unexpectedly, the sound of singing.

Had I died and gone to heaven? It was the Lord’s prayer, voices exquisitely harmonised. Around the corner in the main ward, they stood – a small shimmering complement of young women who sang.

All fear evaporated as I was wheeled at speed to the anteroom outside the theatre, my anxieties utterly stilled. In that lucid calm, I knew I was safe.

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